From a seat in the rear of the room, observe your students and take notes on what they are doing while the teacher is presenting in the front of the room, while they are supposed to be taking notes, doing seatwork, and/or when they are working in the lab. Look closely at each student for a range of behaviors, and resist the temptation on only see what you expect. Note especially what is happening furthest from the teacher. What strategies are used by your CT to encourage students to attend and engage? Watch carefully how your CT moves around the room.
How important is student engagement to your view of how you will teach? What strategies will you employ to encourage student engagement?
Observations: During the lab I observed students were expected to conduct a series of measurements and calculate speeds of members in each group as they moved in a specific fashion for a distance of 10 meters over several trails. The students were conducting their work in the hallway just outside the classroom, and when they finished were supposed to go back into the classroom to work on their calculations. What I saw was a bunch of students who were taking advantage of being out of the classroom to chat with friends in the hallway, open their lockers, or chat with other students from different groups. There were also a few students who were quite on task and as soon as they finished collecting data they went back in as they were expected to. During the period the teacher was moving back and forth between the hall and the classroom.
Reflections: I think that student engagement is very important when teaching, because if the students are engaged they wont be as tempted to find themselves goofing around, distracting other students and probably not learning much. I would like to engage students by sort of integrating some of the things they would rather be doing into the classroom. For example, students like working in groups because they can socialize. I would allow students to do activities and group projects where they are expected to interact with the other kids in the classroom while still staying on task and working towards understanding. I feel that the work that was done in the lab I observed allowed students that interaction with each other. Although in this case it may have been better if students were given less time in the hall so that they focused more on collecting data, they still did enjoy working together and were successful in completing the days assignment.
Class Topic: Velocity and Speeds
Grade: 9
Observed by:
How important is student engagement to your view of how you will teach? What strategies will you employ to encourage student engagement?
Observations: During the lab I observed students were expected to conduct a series of measurements and calculate speeds of members in each group as they moved in a specific fashion for a distance of 10 meters over several trails. The students were conducting their work in the hallway just outside the classroom, and when they finished were supposed to go back into the classroom to work on their calculations. What I saw was a bunch of students who were taking advantage of being out of the classroom to chat with friends in the hallway, open their lockers, or chat with other students from different groups. There were also a few students who were quite on task and as soon as they finished collecting data they went back in as they were expected to. During the period the teacher was moving back and forth between the hall and the classroom.
Reflections: I think that student engagement is very important when teaching, because if the students are engaged they wont be as tempted to find themselves goofing around, distracting other students and probably not learning much. I would like to engage students by sort of integrating some of the things they would rather be doing into the classroom. For example, students like working in groups because they can socialize. I would allow students to do activities and group projects where they are expected to interact with the other kids in the classroom while still staying on task and working towards understanding. I feel that the work that was done in the lab I observed allowed students that interaction with each other. Although in this case it may have been better if students were given less time in the hall so that they focused more on collecting data, they still did enjoy working together and were successful in completing the days assignment.
Class Topic: Velocity and Speeds
Grade: 9
Observed by: